Hillary's Supporters Don't Matter?

by Steve Soto

The related storylines from the continuing Democratic contest for president put out by the mainstream media are as expected cast in a negative light: It’s bad for the party if the fight doesn't stop now, because Obama’s supporters might be denied a victory. In these storylines, whether they be about super delegates or the reemergence of Michigan and Florida, the basic premise is still the same: It will be bad for the party if Obama is denied the nomination, because his core supporters will feel disenfranchised and not vote this fall. In other words, these storylines try to convince us that African Americans, young voters, independents, newly-engaged voters, and wayward Republicans from Obama’s states will be angered, stay home, or vote for John McCain.

And yet, in few of these stories is it mentioned that Democrats are energized about having this contest go on, are dwarfing the Republicans in turnout, and that the ongoing contest sucks the oxygen from covering McCain’s virtually meaningless ramblings. Only Karl Rove and the Washington Post noted today that the ongoing contest pushes McCain off the front page, and that a new poll now shows that either Clinton or Obama beat McBush in a head-to-head contest.

If the media and Barack Obama are so concerned about disenfranchising several voting groups, some of whom heretofore haven’t exactly had a great record of being steadfast high-volume voters for the party, then why do these same concerns not also apply to Hillary’s core supporters: women, working class, and Hispanic voters, if she is hounded from the race now for being by some counts only about 120 delegates behind?

The Wall Street Journal doesn’t even mention Hillary’s voters in their story, and although the Los Angeles Times does in their story, it tries to convince us that:

Leading Democrats scrambled Wednesday to prevent the closest, most riveting presidential contest in decades from tearing the party apart, as the odds rose that neither Hillary Rodham Clinton nor Barack Obama could clinch the nomination without angering large blocs of voters.

And who was that "leading Democrat" actually quoted by the Times? The Reverend Al Sharpton, a man who I haven’t seen by Obama’s side too much in this campaign.

If black voters who have supported Obama think he lost the nomination because the rules of the contest were unfairly changed, the backlash could be damaging, some civil rights activists said.

"You would be changing the rules after you've had the contest," the Rev. Al Sharpton said. "In Michigan, Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot. Clearly, if the name of the candidate who's getting the African American vote isn't on the ballot, that encourages many to stay home. . . . It would be a tremendous insult to the voters of this country."

At issue here is what to do about Florida and Michigan, and the legitimate fear that allowing their delegates to be seated from a flawed process would be unfair to Obama, which is true. It is also true that it would be unfair for super delegates to swing the nomination to Hillary if Obama goes into the convention leading her by a significant amount among elected delegates.

Ideally, each state would conduct “do-overs” at the end of the schedule in June, in fully-contested races consistent with the party’s rules for the allocation of delegates from those states. But neither state seemingly wants to use public money for that, so a fall-back solution may be for each state to conduct party-run caucuses at the end of the current calendar, where Obama and Hillary make their case to the voters of both states. Once those outcomes and their impact upon the delegate counts are known, then we can see who has the stronger claim on the super delegates and the nomination.

But a narrative whose message is that the party should only be concerned about angering Obama’s core supporters but not Hillary’s is a one-sided media narrative spun seemingly for only Obama’s benefit.